Haiti cholera threat magnified by aid failure

The threat posed to Haiti by its cholera outbreak has been magnified by the
failure of the United States and other rich countries to deliver billions of
pounds in promised reconstruction funding quickly enough, it was claimed
yesterday.

A child suffering cholera symptoms in Grande-Saline, HaitiPhoto: AP

Jon Swaine, in New York

7:23PM BST 25 Oct 2010

Health officials and aid workers in the Caribbean country were yesterday battling to prevent the illness spreading to an estimated 1.3 million people living in "tent cities" around the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Over the past week 259 Haitians have died and 3,342 have been admitted to hospital after being infected by the waterborne disease, which thrives on unsanitary living conditions. Five cases have been confirmed in the capital.

The World Health Organisation said yesterday that it was "too early to tell" if the outbreak was over or could yet exploit the poor sanitation and ramshackle conditions in the tents, which are home to people displaced by a devastating earthquake in January, which killed 300,000 people.

Experts said that efforts to rebuild the city and move people out of the tents have been hindered by "indefensible" delays to the release of billions of pounds in reconstruction funding pledged by world leaders seven months ago.

Only about £465 million of £3.4 billion promised in March for 2010-11 has been delivered, including none of the £725 million pledged from the United States by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State.

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Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, said that months of political in-fighting in the US had blocked the funds being released and deterred other countries from promptly delivering their own funds.

"It is indefensible that 10 months after the earthquake so many people are still living in temporary shelter," Mr Weisbrot said. "This is clearly a result of the international failure to achieve even the most basic reconstruction."

John Simon, a former senior US diplomat now working at the Centre for Global Development in Washington, said the delay "has potentially impeded the steps that could have been taken to help Haiti come back from something like cholera."

The US gave £636 million to fund emergency relief work after January's earthquake. But the further £725 million, to be spent on subsequent "recovery and reconstruction", was promised by Mrs Clinton.

However it took another four months of bureaucratic debate before the measure was approved by the US Congress and signed by Barack Obama, the US President, at the end of July.

A further three months have passed, with funds still held up in Washington while Mrs Clinton's officials negotiate with members of congressional committees over how the money could be spent.

Mr Simon said: "Cholera is a known challenge in refugee situations like Haiti's. The people on the ground foresaw this. Reconstruction funding should begin while the initial relief effort is still in full swing."

Julie Schindall, an Oxfam representative in Haiti, said: "Countries who have promised aid to Haiti need to follow through".

Many in the US, including Bill Clinton, the former president, who is now co-chairman of the commission overseeing Haiti's reconstruction, have heaped blame for the delays on Tom Coburn, a Republican Senator for Oklahoma.

Mr Coburn has held up the authorisation of some aid spending on Haiti by objecting to a minor provision in legislation.

He was attacked by Democrats and accused of "committing an atrocity against the people of Haiti" by Keith Olbermann, a popular Left-wing broadcaster. However, his objection in fact related to money pencilled in for Haiti in 2011, rather than the immediate funding, which it does not affect.

Mr Coburn in return said that the Secretary of State – Mr Clinton's wife – and other "executive branch bureaucracy" were responsible, due to the delay in reporting on how the money would be spent.

"Despite the fact that more than 10 weeks have passed since this bill was passed into law, the Secretary of State appears to have fulfilled that condition only this week," he said earlier this month.